Archive for Buddhism

Scriptural Literalism as a Cause for Islamic Terrorism: A Short Dissent

Posted by: Ion | July 24th, 2008 · 8:43 PM

Ordinarily, citing one of Karen Armstrong’s devotional and haphazard apologias for Islamic Fundamentalism in your introduction, is not a good way to win me over to your essay. However Mahmood Sanglay did manage to keep my interest in his fine editorial for The Brunei Times.

The Armstrong argument selected by Sanglay, is her view that a propensity toward a literalist reading of religious texts is the locus of all violent religious extremism. It doesn’t take much contemplation of the world’s religious texts to recognize that this is fundamentally unsound as a universalist precept.

For a common example, reading the The Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount found in the Gospel of Matthew as written, is not going to persuade you to become a suicide bomber. When Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy” that can only be read to advocate things such as euthanasia of the weak or murder to liberate the soul from heresy, when reading it as metaphor, not literally. Or if you prefer, a literal reading the Pancasila of the Buddha (not Sukarno’s), is unlikely to produce the monastic warriors of the Shaolin. A more liberal interpretation certainly can though.

Thus exactly the opposite of what Armstrong and Sanglay separately propose cannot produce violent extremism, clearly does and has. Indeed in many if not most religions, a literal reading of scriptures is likely to be far more pacific than one that is open to more casual and ambiguous interpretation. “Choose what you wish and make of it what you will” is rarely a recipe for judicious outcomes in the broader practice of moral and religious codes.

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The Historical Origins of Buddhism

Posted by: Ion | June 23rd, 2007 · 8:25 AM

Very interesting BBC documentary on the “teachings of the Awakened One.” Buddhism is one of the world’s oldest living religions. The spiritual heart of over 400 million worldwide, it is practiced predominantly in Asia. There and by the occasional vagabond Westerner, who for whatever reason is absurdly disenchanted with his own inherited cultural and religious wealth.

Nevertheless, a disinterested examination of the faith’s founding, principle and influence is always welcome:

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